The afternoon sun in West City glinted off the glass curtain walls of Capsule Corp's headquarters, bright enough to hurt the eyes.
Lin Fan had just come up from the underground lab. He was thinking of buying a drink at the convenience store across the street and getting some fresh air. After spending so long in the Gravity Room and Pill Factory, even the air seemed to carry a mix of metal and medicinal herbs.
The moment he stepped onto the plaza in front of the company entrance, a bone-chilling sense of danger shot through him like a surge of high-voltage current!
The spiritual awareness he had cultivated through the Great Dao Source Scripture shrieked at an unprecedented pitch!
At almost the same moment, a deep, oppressive whistling sound came from the sky!
Lin Fan snapped his head up!
A black speck high above rapidly grew larger, accompanied by a teeth-grinding roar as it tore through the air!
It wasn't some kind of aircraft. It was a... gigantic stone pillar!
Atop the pillar stood a figure in a white martial arts uniform, long hair neatly combed. He stood with his hands behind his back, looking down indifferently, as if a god were gazing upon ants!
Boom!!!
The stone pillar slammed into the center of the plaza like a meteor. The hard, specially reinforced concrete shattered like a brittle cracker, sending fragments flying everywhere!
Dust billowed into the sky, forming a brief mushroom cloud!
A powerful shock wave swept outward with the debris, stinging Lin Fan's cheeks and forcing him to raise a hand to shield himself.
The dust slowly settled.
Mercenary Tao still stood atop the stone pillar, without a speck of dust on even the hem of his clothes.
He pushed up his sunglasses—which he had somehow put on without anyone noticing. His icy gaze pierced through the dust and locked precisely onto Lin Fan.
There was no anger in his eyes, no contempt. Only the absolute indifference of someone looking at a lifeless object.
He slowly raised one hand and pointed his index finger at Lin Fan. His voice wasn't loud, yet it pierced through the clamor of the plaza like an icy steel needle, stabbing into Lin Fan's eardrums:
"Lin Fan."
"Your existence has sullied the purity of martial arts."
"I am Mercenary Tao, the world's number-one assassin."
"By order of the Crane School, I have come to eliminate you."
"Your countdown begins now. You have... ten seconds left to breathe."
There was no unnecessary chatter, no display of power. Lin Fan couldn't even sense much ki from him, because he had completely reined it in. But his bone-deep killing intent and the sheer gulf in their strength became a tangible, terrifying pressure that engulfed Lin Fan in an instant!
Lin Fan's heart nearly stopped!
His blood seemed to freeze in his veins!
Strong! Impossibly strong!
Far stronger than Tien Shinhan—and even stronger than Son Goku after his return from training at the Lookout!
This pressure was pure, born for killing, and devastatingly powerful without reason!
Even if the Battle Power Detector didn't show a high number, the death that number represented was so heavy it left him gasping!
He couldn't fight him!
He would absolutely die!
That thought hit Lin Fan like a bucket of ice water, snapping him out of his initial shock.
Run!
He had to run!
Almost the instant Mercenary Tao finished speaking, Lin Fan hurled himself to the side!
At the same time, he flicked his wrist and hurled a Hoi-Poi Capsule Bulma had practically forced on him, printed with the image of a car, onto the open ground in front of him!
Pop! A cloud of white smoke burst outward, and a sleek-looking hovercar appeared in an instant. It looked incredibly fast.
"Start! Emergency escape mode!"
Lin Fan shouted with all his might and slipped through the open car door like a fish.
Almost at the same moment, Mercenary Tao stood atop the pillar and casually joined his fingers like a blade. From dozens of meters away, he gave the car a light slash!
Shing—!
A nearly invisible blade of ki ripped through the air with a sharp shriek, slashing toward the car too fast for the eye to follow!
Where it passed, it plowed a deep furrow into the ground!
At the very last instant, the car's engine roared to life. Blue ion streams burst from its rear, and it shot forward!
The blade of ki skimmed the car's rear and silently sliced a company sign's metal sculpture in half. Its cut surface was smooth as a mirror!
"Oh? Not bad."
Mercenary Tao raised an eyebrow slightly, apparently a little surprised by the "toy's" speed, but his voice remained flat. "Too slow, though."
His figure blurred and vanished from atop the stone pillar like a ghost. In the next instant, he had appeared at the edge of the plaza, moving so fast he seemed to have teleported!
He raised his hand again!
Lin Fan's scalp prickled. He drove the Wind Control Art to its limits—not to fly, but to sense the path of the deadly blade of ki behind him!
At the same time, he wrenched the steering wheel. The car lurched into a narrow street between buildings, taking a perilous turn so sharp it nearly rolled over!
Boom!
Another blade of ki sliced through an entire street-corner billboard and the wall behind it!
"Find an evasive route! Head into the winding old town!"
Lin Fan yelled at the onboard computer, his palms slick with cold sweat. He had never felt death so close!
"Understood, Mr. Lin Fan!"
The car's AI assistant responded in a calm electronic voice. The car accelerated instantly, weaving wildly through the city's tangled streets, drifting around corners and using buildings for cover.
Mercenary Tao's figure clung to them like a shadow, never too far behind or too close.
He wasn't even chasing at full speed. Like a cat toying with a mouse, he casually sent out a blade of ki now and then, shaving off part of the car or slicing through the road ahead and forcing it to change course.
He was enjoying the thrill of the hunt.
Lin Fan's thoughts raced. At this rate, he would be caught sooner or later! He had to buy time!
As he steered, he frantically rummaged through the storage compartment and pulled out several drained batteries, a few alloy rods of unknown composition, and even several pills that had failed during refinement.
They were moving too fast for him to set anything up properly. He could only improvise!
He hurled a handful of failed pills and dead batteries out the window, then concentrated his spiritual sense and struggled to form the simplest illusion seal with both hands, channeling his faint True Qi into the scrap!
"Crude Maze Formation! Activate!"
He snapped an alloy rod in half, rapidly carved several crooked runes into it with his True Qi, and flung it toward another intersection!
"Disturbance Talisman! Detonate!"
These methods were crude beyond belief. They barely qualified as formations or talismans at all—just tricks and little bombs containing a trace of his spiritual sense and True Qi.
Mercenary Tao was about to send another blade of ki after them when the scene before his eyes suddenly blurred. Three or four phantom cars appeared at once, their directions impossible to distinguish!
At the same time, a faint explosion and flash came from a side alley!
"Hm?"
Mercenary Tao's movements slowed for a fraction of a second. For the first time, a slight change crossed his icy expression—not surprise, but the irritation of someone bothered by a fly.
"Pointless tricks."
He didn't even bother to distinguish between the illusions. He simply sent an even stronger blade of ki toward the direction where he sensed the strongest trace of Lin Fan's presence!
Rumble!
An innocent building was sliced in half at the middle. Its upper section slowly slid down with a deafening crash!
The illusion vanished instantly!
Lin Fan saw it through the rearview mirror, and his heart sank even further. The gap in their strength was too great!
His little tricks couldn't even buy him a second!
The car narrowly dodged the falling debris and sped into an old district where the streets were even narrower.
Mercenary Tao's figure followed behind like the Grim Reaper, still unhurried, as if curious to see what other tricks this bug could come up with.
Lin Fan clenched his teeth. He kept racing away while continuing to set crude illusion formations and Trap Talismans, heedless of the cost—even if they could only distract his pursuer for a tenth of a second!
He was fighting for every second, struggling against an impossible situation!
And Mercenary Tao seemed to have finally run out of patience.
"The game is over."
His icy voice, like a pronouncement from the Grim Reaper, rang clearly in Lin Fan's ears once more.
The deadly killing intent suddenly surged to its peak!
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